Rob Bell is fast becoming enemy number one in a lot of Evangelical/Calvinistic/Reformed circles these last few days and all because of his new book coming out later this month, Love Wins.Rob has often been accused of holding some dodgy beliefs but this time for a lot of people he has gone too far. With just a release from his publisher and a short accompanying video, a lot of people have decided that Rob is a Universalist. In short, someone who believes that everyone will end up in Heaven.
I don't know if Rob is or isn't. I don't know what he believes. And the reason I don't is because I haven't read his book. And I'm not going to start talking about what someone believes even before it has been truly revealed. Maybe he is.
But this blog isn't really about Rob Bell. It's about how we live our lives as Christians. It's about how we love (yeah love, not just like or tolerate) the people we meet (or tweet about, hey that rhymes) every day in our lives.
You see theology is important. It's very important. But...sometimes we make it too important. Sometimes we forget that theology isn't the point of being a Christian. The problem that people have with the type of theology, which Rob Bell is accused of having, is that it takes away from Jesus death. That it is untrue to what the Bible says.
But what if in the middle of this whole debate we have missed something so much more important.
Jesus once said that the two greatest things we should do are Love God and then love others (Matt 22:37-40)
Maybe I am being naive but getting to Heaven isn't the point of being a Christian. Having the 'right' theology held by some Christians isn't the point. The point of being a Christian is Jesus.
The point of being a Christian is to follow his example. To love the people that nobody else gives a crap about. To give up our lives for something bigger than ourselves. To show compassion. To be with people who are hurting. To give our neighbour hope. To stand up for injustice. To help people be free from the things that are killing them daily.
To do all these things so that all people see in us, is Jesus.
At the risk of coming across all emergent like ; ) I am going to pose a question and not answer it outright.
What if we took Jesus commandments and loved God and loved others? What, if like Jesus said, we live each day following these two commandments, not as if they were the most important thing to Jesus, but because they are?
Maybe then theology wouldn't matter. Maybe then everyone would get to experience Heaven. Because love would be all the world would know and since Jesus is love, then the world would know Jesus.
You see people outside of Christian circles don't care about all this stuff. They wouldn't know the difference between a Calvinist and an emergent if they slapped them in the face with the Nicene Creed (if you don't know what that is well...exactly). Most people don't even think they need saving from anything.
What they do care about is being loved. About hurting. About finding real peace. About desiring joy.
If Jesus were to think anything about this whole Rob Bell debate, he might wonder when we got so distracted. When it was we rewrote his most important commandments to being "love God and make sure you get all your doctrine correct even though the word I left you can be fuzzy about a lot of this stuff" (I'm glad that wasn't one because that would have been hell learning in Sunday School)
So what if we did live that way?
I think in that case at least,
Love definately wins.
